Keeping a restaurant list in Vancouver: how to never forget a recommendation

Someone tells you about a dumpling place in Richmond. A coworker raves about a bakery on Main. You walk past a new ramen shop with a line out the door. And then, a month later, when you are deciding where to eat on a Friday night, you cannot remember any of them. A restaurant list fixes that, and keeping one is easier than it sounds.

Why keep a restaurant list?

Because recommendations disappear. In a city with as many places to eat as Vancouver, the good tips you hear in passing are the most valuable information you have, and the easiest to lose. A list turns them into a plan. It also saves the endless "where should we go?" back-and-forth: you simply open the list and pick.

How should you organize your restaurant list?

A single long list gets unwieldy fast. A few smaller lists, built around how you actually decide, work better:

List	What goes on it
Want to try	Every recommendation, before you have been
Favourites	Places you have been and would happily go back to
Date night	Quieter, special places
Cheap eats	Reliable, affordable spots
With the kids	Places that handled your family well
Visitors	Where to take friends from out of town
By neighbourhood	Kits, Main Street, Richmond, the North Shore

Add a note to each place: what to order, who recommended it, when it is open, and whether you need a booking.

How do you share a restaurant list with friends?

Lists are much more useful when they are shared. A couple can keep one date-night list instead of two. Friends planning a birthday can add their ideas to one place. Visitors can be sent a ready-made list instead of a long text. On Mosey, you can make lists of places, share them, and see where the people you follow have eaten and what they thought.

Why follow friends instead of strangers?

Ratings from strangers are useful, but you do not know their taste. A friend whose opinions you trust is worth a hundred anonymous stars. If they love heat, their spicy noodle recommendation means something. If they are vegetarian, their rating of a vegetable dish carries weight. Following friends on Mosey means their ratings and the places they actually ate show up when you are deciding, so your feed reflects people you know rather than whoever shouted loudest.

How do you use a list to choose where to eat tonight?

1. Open the right list, such as date night or cheap eats.
2. Filter by neighbourhood, based on where you are or where you are heading.
3. Check the note for what to order and whether to book.
4. Check the hours. Many small places close on Mondays or Tuesdays.
5. Go. Then rate it, so your list gets smarter.

What should you do after you try a place on your list?

Rate it, dish by dish, while it is fresh. Note what was great and what you would skip. Move it from "want to try" to "favourites" if you loved it, or remove it if you did not. Over time your list becomes a personal guide to Vancouver, built from your own meals rather than someone else's marketing.

How do you use a restaurant list to plan a trip to Vancouver?

A list is most useful for visitors when it is built around where you will actually be. A few habits help:

1. Group places by neighbourhood, so you can match meals to whatever you are doing that day: Gastown and Chinatown together, Kitsilano with the beach, Richmond with the airport.
2. Note which places take reservations, and book the few that need it before you arrive.
3. Add a rainy-day backup for each area, ideally somewhere indoors near a SkyTrain station.
4. Mark the closed days. Many small Vancouver restaurants close on Mondays or Tuesdays.
5. Keep one cheap, quick option in every neighbourhood, for the day plans change.

Share the list with whoever you are travelling with, so everyone can add the places they have heard about.

How do lists help small restaurants?

The independent places that make Vancouver's food scene special often live or die by word of mouth. When you add a small bakery to a shared list, rate the dish you loved and pass it to a friend, you are doing the most powerful marketing a small restaurant can get. On Mosey, ratings from people who ate there also feed into Mosey Gold, a mark a place earns when diners rate it highly and that cannot be bought.

What makes a list worth sharing?

A good list has a clear theme, a reason for every place on it, and notes that tell the reader what to order. Five well-chosen places are more useful than fifty. And the best lists are kept up to date, because in Vancouver, restaurants open and close all the time. Keep yours current, and it will be the first thing friends ask you for when they need a recommendation.

How this works in the app: Make a list.

More guides to read next:

• Holiday dining in Vancouver: the Christmas Market, festive menus and booking tips
• Restaurant rewards in Vancouver: how café and restaurant loyalty programs work
• Eating alone in Vancouver: the best kinds of places for solo dining

More in the Canadian food guides and the ranked lists of places.